


Slow

by jazzjo



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 13:11:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3135713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzjo/pseuds/jazzjo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy had tried to keep her distance, she swore. But the draw was as magnetic as it was immediate, and it was took every shred of her protective instinct to leave it as all it was — a dance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow

Sweeping her pen in smooth strokes across a folder that should have been turned in two days ago by one of the boys, Peggy twitched her foot with the beat from her record player and gnawed lightly on her bottom lip. 

 

Mr. Jarvis must have been rubbing off on her, what with his eight o’ clock Benny Goodman. 

 

Milk was warming on the stove, in a small glass bottle ready for her once she had finished these reports. The weather outside was frightful at best, and the chill seeped into every building, no matter how comfortable. Shifting in her seat she allowed her mind to wander for the briefest of seconds, to pale blues and pastel salmons, brown curls and bright voices. 

 

A knock came at her door three minutes past eight. Two sharp raps in quick succession before a pause intercepted a third. 

 

Setting her feet down on the ground from where they had been on her boudoir, Peggy rose from her chair and unlatched the door, knowing exactly the person to expect behind it. 

 

“Angie,” Peggy regarded the woman who leaned against the frame of her door, “Just off a shift?”

 

The woman in question brushed her curls back with one hand and tilted her head to the right just so as she spoke crisply, “Well, English, not all of us keep the strange hours you do at the telephone company. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

 

Laughing good-naturedly, Peggy stepped aside and gestured for Angie to step into her room with a theatrical flourish. 

 

“Oh my lady, please do honour me with your presence in my humble abode,” The grin on her scarlet lips reached her eyes in a twinkling blaze, her words drawing a exuberant melange of laughs from her companion. 

 

Stepping through the doorway of Peggy’s room, Angie curtseyed in pale blue and salmon of her uniform, playing along, “Madame, it is I who am honoured to have been invited into such a lovely residence.”

 

Peggy shut the door softly behind her, taking her coat and laying it neatly and precisely folded over the rack by the door. Brushing snow off of her hair, Angie sighed at the warmth that Peggy’s room provided from the heat of the stove, turning to face Peggy with a playful grin. 

 

As she took Angie’s delicate — but cold, overworked and calloused, Peggy noted with something all too similar to concern to sit completely comfortably in her chest — hand in her own more robust one, she suppressed a shiver at the jolt that ran through her. 

 

“The band, my lady,” Peggy declared showily, “Do you hear it? It is playing such a very lovely tune.”

 

Angie ducked her head, playing every bit the bashful, flattered maiden as the words fell from her lips like raindrops on a parched plain, “Indeed it is. What a wonderful song for a dance.”

 

“Miss, may I,” She bowed as she offered her other hand to Angie, her request equal parts hesitant and respectful, “Have the pleasure of a dance?”

 

Coyly Angie had replied, a smile adorning her face as she placed one hand in Peggy’s and the other on her shoulder, “I suppose the song is slow enough. You will not tread on my toes, I trust?”

 

“Of course not!” Feigning offence, Peggy tried to calm her racing heart — she had never been one to flush an unbecoming ruddy shade, nor to feel her heart thumping at twice its usual speed, too high in her throat to be in the right place — and set her hand gently on Angie’s waist. High enough to be respectable, of course. 

 

She _was_ a gentlewoman after all. 

 

They stepped and turned and swayed in time to Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Peggy’s hands as close to shaking as they had ever been as she felt the trembling that was Angie’s laugh at this proximity. Her hair barely lit by the lamp from Peggy’s desk, her eyes ablaze with mirth and genuine happiness, it took all that Peggy had in her to hold herself steady and not falter as she dipped her. 

 

Each step and each turn left Peggy’s head reeling, her smile coming unfurled at the edges and turning into a beam as she regarded the woman she danced with. 

 

_It was all but an act_ , she chastised herself, _everyone close to me is bound to get hurt._

 

As the song drew to a close and their dance came to a halt, Angie embraced Peggy warmly, her voice bright but weary by Peggy’s ear, “You are quite the dancer, aren’t you, English?”

 

“Full of surprises, I am,” Peggy forced out, striding over to the record player to lift the needle off of the record, “As are you, Angie. Quite a marvellous dancer indeed.”

 

“Dancing won’t keep you warm, English,” She chuckled dryly, “And neither will acting until I pay my dues.”

 

_I would,_ she had to stop herself from blurting out before her mind rewrote the thought for her, _but this dance has to end once the music stops_. 

 

She walked Angie to the door, pressing a warm bottle of milk into her hands as Angie pressed a kiss to her cheek. 

 

“Perhaps this will,” Her voice steady as it could manage being, one hand on her now-open door, “Rest well, Angie.”

 

“Thank you,” Angie had murmured as she left Peggy’s room, striding towards her own, “Sleep well, English.”

 

Once she shut the door behind her, Peggy slumped wearily against her door. Her head found solace in her own cold, empty hands, and her heart resettled itself from its place in her throat. Raising a hand to smudge her red lipstick off of chapped lips, she righted herself and returned to her desk after splashing water on her face, resigned to a cold night and blue words spilling from a pen. 

 

_It was but a dance,_ her mind resigned itself to the fact, _no matter how slow it was, it could not have lasted forever. Not if I wanted to protect her._


End file.
